Strategic Human Resource Management in International Business

This paper explores the critical role of strategic human resource management (HRM) in the success of international businesses. It delves into the challenges and opportunities associated with managing a global workforce, focusing on the importance of expatriate training and development. The paper examines different staffing approaches, including ethnocentric, polycentric, geocentric, and regiocentric, and analyzes the effectiveness of each approach in various international business contexts. It also highlights the key challenges faced by expatriates, such as cultural adaptation, language barriers, and social integration, and provides insights into how organizations can effectively address these challenges to ensure the success of their international operations.

Business Strategic Human Resource management
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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction:
In the era of 21st century of globalization, the business organization is tended to break the
confined state of domestic business world. With the passage of time, it has been observed that
the working approach as well as practicing techniques is constantly changing. The current
global economy puts the domestic organizations to establish their operation in the foreign
market. This type of expansion is there to provide greater opportunities for diversification and
market growth. In this context, the domestic companies are constantly looking for the
opportunities to increase the revenue streams. Therefore, it has become much essential for the
different business organisation to provide proper training to the employees, in order to
upgrade their performance level. This business organization grows outsized trough the global
synergy. The entrance into the international market requires accessing the diversified talent
pool of the existing employee.
The shifting from the national organization to the international one requires appropriate
staffing, expatriates’ selection, reimbursement, diversity and training management in the
international level. In this context, the parent company needs to uplift the efficiency level of
the existing employees in order to make them best suited for the international market. The
company organizes the proper training and development program to furnish the workability
of the selected employee. The aim of the training and development program of the company
is make the employee eligible to perform in the international business environment. The
objective of this assignment is to depict the suitable approach to train the expatriates in such a
way that they can face the new challenges at their international workplace.
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Discussion
The international HRM department maintains a great variety of institutional and cultural
variations to manage the multinational context (Stahl et al., 2012). The complexities of the
operational service and the division of employees are the major concern of the HRM
department of a newly formed international organization. The main functions of the HRM
department is to operate the recruitment and selection process, training and development
program, multi cultural environment management and performance upliftment. The global
staffing faces several critical issues in regards with the expatriate placement. The current
IHRM increases the mobility of the manpower in order to get the rapid growth of the
international competition level (Cerdin and Brewster, 2014).
The rapid growth of the current emerging international market of the developing countries
implies the increasing need for the eligible managers or team leaders. In this context, the
main target of the mangers and team leaders is to raise the competencies of the current
employee. However, the efficiency level of the employee and the HRM strategy are there to
bring the major increase in the productivity and profitability of the organization in the
international business platform. Recent research discloses that the strategies of the IHRM are
the important one for this remarkable success of the newly opened international organization
(Ghafoor et al., 2011).
The current international business sends the expatriates on the long term agreement in order
to utilize the work ability of the employees which they gain through the training and
development program. The international staffing policies are developed to connect the
expatriates with the selected location and culture. In a wider sense, the international business
is the system which is globally incorporated and co-ordinated in relation with the local
compassion and responsiveness. The global network of this integrated system is there to
adopt the fast changing diversity practices.
Newly internationalising organization prepares the selected employee under the strategic
training and development program (Harris, 2012). In this context, the expatriate need to
access the cross cultural training to prepare themselves to fit with the international market.
Expatriate are the professionals who are send to abroad on a temporary assignment by their
current company. The IHRM needs to acquire the thorough knowledge about the barriers
and blockages of the international market condition. The most effective barrier is the scarcity
of the working capital, because the international business platform requires a large amount of
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capital than the domestic business world. The proper identification of the foreign business
market and the available opportunities is another barrier towards the newly internationalising
company(Reiche et al., 2016).
However, the limited information about the target market can harm the business progress
widely. The lack of effective communication skill is one of the barriers which can directly
affect the potentiality of the employees to interact with the local customer in the foreign
countries. In order to manage any project work in the right way, it is essential to develop the
communication level (Abidi et al., 2011).
The prime requirements of the expatriate are the managerial and technical ability, family
requirement, organizational requirements, cross cultural ability and others. The HRM
department provides the cross-cultural training session to the employees in order to make
them efficient to cope up with the foreign society and culture. However, this cross-cultural
training is to train the employee with the foreign culture and language. This training will
diminish the rigidity of the employee in the foreign land.
The IHRM department follows the staffing approaches to arrange expatriate to expand the
business in the international business market. There are three types of international staffing
approaches namely ethnocentric staffing approach, polycentric approach, geocentric
approach and regiocentric approach (Pellegrino and McNaughton, 2017). The ethnocentric
staffing approach refers to the policy which is used to ensure the culture of the entire
organization in an integrated way rather than diversified one. The ethnocentric staffing
approach provides the domestic work environment to the employee in the foreign land.
Through this approach the companies can shed special focus on the norms and practices of
the parent company (Rittberger et al., 2012). This approach consists of different sections such
as selection of candidates, candidate pool, technological skill assessment and decision-
making ability.
The second one is the polycentric approach, which refers to the staffing of the host country
to recruit for the managerial positions for the international business platform. The polycentric
approach eliminates the verbal communication barriers and eradicates the adjustment
problem from expatriates (Davis, 2017). The geocentric approach utilises the best employee
for the international business platform. The rationale behind this approach is the pool of
talented staff, those who are efficient enough to take part in the global business market. The
negative impact of the approach is the expensive compensation, training and relocation costs.
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The regiocentric approach can be considered as the effective approach, through which
international staffing as well as training is being conducted.
The ethnocentric staffing approach is the best-suited approach to the newly formed
international organization. However, this approach is consisting of the cross-cultural training,
language training and the job specific training (Muscalu and Muntean, 2014). The cross-
cultural training mainly helps to foster the existing employee to understand the ethos and
values of the target country. The candidate selection is the initial stage to bring the candidate
pool. On the other hand, the language training is essential to make the employee eligible to fit
with the foreign work environment.
The job specific or technical training is there to provide the necessary information about the
particular post to expatriate. The main reason behind this suitability is that there is the
appropriate scope for the organization to use the existing workforce with the help of training
and development program. The advantage of the ethnocentric staffing approach is to ensure
the overseas companies with the overall corporate policies and objectives (Shah et al., 2012).
The ethnocentric staffing approach has the requirement to raise the competency level of the
expatriate group. This approach is to build the better synchronization between the parent and
host country (Reiche and Harzing, 2011).
In this section, the culture of the parent company can be effortlessly transferred to the host
company. Therefore, the infusing beliefs and practices of the foreign country become familiar
to the expatriate group. This enables the parent company to put their effective control over
the host company in the foreign land. In this context, the parent company has the potentiality
to have a close watch on the operation of the host to provide the necessary facility to the
employee. This approach brings the cut in the expenditure of the local labour market. The
sending management of the employees to the overseas job is to enhance the solidarity within
the society. The planned ethnocentrism used to save the society from the crumbling to a large
extent. The aim of this approach is to execute the certain positive function for the individuals,
group and societies.
The ethnocentric staffing approach encourages the loyalty and faithfulness to one’s own
society and culture. This approach reflects the feeling of a multinational corporation work
environment in the foreign countries. This approach does not impose the values of several
groups in the extent of the cultural essence. This approach allows the employees to keep the
old traditions and practices alive in their mind even in the foreign country. The main focus of
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the companies are to share own culture and belief which helps to develop the atmosphere to
understand the peer group. This kind of behaviour is very advantageous for others to
understand the way to grow up the different culture in the foreign country. The main
advantage of this approach is to drive the individual expatriate to have the strong patriotic
feeling in the foreign country. The current trend of the internationalising organization is to
adopt the ethnocentric staffing approach in order to enhance the work efficiency level of the
employee to entire into overseas service.
Discuss what challenges employees often face when working abroad
The overseas working is itself a challenge to the expatriate group. The shifting of the work
environment brings the money and reputation to the employees along with the handful
challenges.
Social life: the establishment of the new social life is one of the biggest challenges that an
expatriate has to face in the foreign country. In this context, the expatriate needs to ask the
co-worker or neighbour to get any information of the local area. The expatriate always used
to connect himself with the internet to get connected with the expatriate group and the
organization. The social life of the expatriate becomes quiet stressful. The loneliness grabs
the peaceful state of mind. The expatriate constantly feel the scarcity of the relocation of his
family and peer group. In this situation, he used to take the social media sites as the most
eminent instrument to connect with his native relative.
Bureaucracy: the bureaucracy is the common challenge to the expatriate group. The
identification card of the expatriate is there to provide the advantage and disadvantage to the
expatriate. However, the expatriate is bound to carry the identity card with him as the proof
of his identification. In this context, they have to do many a paper work to have several
services in that foreign country. The always feel the bureaucracy of the overseas country.
Cultural adaptation: the cultural barrier is the prime challenge to the expatriate group. The
differences in the norms, religion and values put the expatriate group to adopt the culture of
the local area. At the initial stage, the regional cultural may seems to the expatriate group as
the most ridiculous or peculiar one. Therefore, they need to read about the history and culture
of that particular place in order to understand the reason of such cultural behaviour. The
flexibility of the expatriate group is essential to live in that particular place without any
abstract pressure. The expatriate group need to go on a holiday to get acquainted with the
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culture of the country. This is to wipe out the cultural differences between the host country
and current country.
Standard of living: the standard of living is also varied based on the changing salary, rent
structure and taxes. This type of challenges creates the puzzling state of mind of the
expatriate group. In this section, the previous training and development is the key to
overcome this powerful challenge. The expatriate group make them self prepared to face the
challenge and to adopt the local life style in order to break the rigidity of their living.
Natural atmosphere: the natural atmosphere is another challenge to the expatriate group.
However, this relocation harms them with several healthcare problems. They face the
hazardous health condition in the new country. The lack of health care insurance puts the
expatriate group to spend a big amount in the medication. It is a time consuming process to
adopt the local health care service policy.
Language barrier: the language barrier is another vital challenge to the expatriate group in
the overseas job. The understanding and speaking of the local language cut down the
confidence level of the expatriate group. The language training is there to make then able to
understand the language and speak very consciously. Therefore, the fluency in their
communication skill is the key strength which can provide them the confidence to beat with
the language barrier. In this context, the expatriate group need to increase the communication
frequency with the local people.
Relocation: the relocation itself is a major challenge to the expatriate group. However, this
relocation is the main reason to terminate the flexible contacts with the family and friends.
This factor brings the demotion in the work performance of the expatriate group. The limited
capacity of the luggage is the challenge to the expatriate group which prohibit them to take all
the necessary things with them.
Seclusion: the seclusion id the most effective challenge to the expatriate group. However, the
personal life is closely interlinked with the professional performance. The innumerable
challenges reduce the work performance of the expatriate group. Therefore, the
concentrations of the expatriate group also fall down. They used to spend more time with the
internet service in order to get rid of the secluded living.
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Conclusion:
The current trend of the internationalization of several organizations is there to generate a
large number of expatriate groups. The main objective of this internationalization is to gain
the major increase in the revenue service. The rapid growth of the population is responsible to
bring the rapid success in the international business market. The assignment is successfully
described several key approaches to the international recruitment and selection process. In
this context, the ethnocentric staffing approach is best suited to develop the international
selection process among the existing employee. The international business market requires
the best efficiency level of the employee to stabilize the power position for them in the
international business platform. The appropriate training and development program are there
to prepare the expatriate groups to fit with the relocation or overseas service. The essay is
elaborately discusses the major challenges of the expatriate groups in the overseas service. In
this section, the proper training and development program is inevitable to make the expatriate
groups efficient for the target country.
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